Sigma rule: Kerberoasting Activity - Initial Query

A detection rule from the SigmaHQ repository, shown as its author published it. Dataset version ref-a25b63ab28d9, updated 2025-10-19T00:00:00.000Z.

Rule

Title
Kerberoasting Activity - Initial Query
Status
test
Level
medium
Author
@kostastsale
Date
2022-01-21
Modified
2025-10-19
File
rules/windows/builtin/security/win_security_kerberoasting_activity.yml
Commit
ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

This rule will collect the data needed to start looking into possible kerberoasting activity.
Further analysis or computation within the query is needed focusing on requests from one specific host/IP towards multiple service names within a time period of 5 seconds.
You can then set a threshold for the number of requests and time between the requests to turn this into an alert.

Log source

product
windows
service
security

Detection

selection:
    EventID: 4769
    Status: '0x0' # Translated as status from failure code field. Query only for successes
    TicketEncryptionType: '0x17' # RC4 ticket encryption type
filter_main_krbtgt:
    ServiceName|endswith:
        - 'krbtgt' # Ignore requests for the krbtgt service
        - '$' # Ignore requests from service names that end with $ which are associated with genuine kerberos traffic
filter_main_machine_accounts:
    TargetUserName|contains: '$@' # Ignore requests from machines
condition: selection and not 1 of filter_main_*

False positives (as the rule lists them)

  • Legacy applications.

Tags

  • attack.credential-access
  • attack.t1558.003

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

References

Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/windows/builtin/security/win_security_kerberoasting_activity.yml

Sources and licences

  • SigmaHQ

    "Kerberoasting Activity - Initial Query" by @kostastsale (SigmaHQ). Rule: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/windows/builtin/security/win_security_kerberoasting_activity.yml.
    Licensed under the Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1: https://github.com/SigmaHQ/Detection-Rule-License

    Detection Rule License (DRL) 1.1

Cite this page

Dragons Eye Ransomware Tracker, "Sigma rule: Kerberoasting Activity - Initial Query",
entity page, dataset version ref-a25b63ab28d9, updated 2025-10-19T00:00:00.000Z,
https://ransomware-tracker.com/detections/sigma/d04ae2b8-ad54-4de0-bd87-4bc1da66aa59 (accessed 2026-11-03).
Underlying source: SigmaHQ rule d04ae2b8-ad54-4de0-bd87-4bc1da66aa59, commit ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84.

Pages change. The dataset version identifies the data, but no archive of old versions is kept, so this citation cannot be replayed later.